No matter what happens, I believe the author is correct. Europe will not trust the US in a long time. Trump actually has managed to destroy the image of America in the entire world, in a few months.
No matter what happens, I believe the author is correct. Europe will not trust the US in a long time. Trump actually has managed to destroy the image of America in the entire world, in a few months.
I seriously doubt that, we had a similar party here in Denmark that topped at 22%. And even with 22% they never became part of government.
Even if AfD manages to become part of a government in the future, they will never have exclusive governing power like Trump has in USA. That’s the difference between a functional democracy, and the flawed democracy USA has.
AfD is mostly popular in the old East Germany, and German politicians need to figure out why that is. Why do they want authoritarianism again?
I have my suspicions, that it may have to do with not doing enough for ordinary workers, and giving too many privileges to the 1%. This is the problem in USA, where ironically they see Trump as resistance against that, when in fact he is part of the problem.
If AfD isn’t topping now, German politicians are doing something wrong. Do East Germans really favor Russia above EU?
If they do, they must be grossly misinformed.
The real reason is that German unification was done poorly and it benefited West Germany in a very disproportionate manner.
Most people and jobs migrated to west Germany and East Germany was left to rot.
Couple that with the fact that communism/socialism became a big taboo in Europe and capitalism’s faults were completely ignored, even when it was visibly failing.
When you ban and stigmatize the left so much, people will turn to the only side that actually acknowledges something is wrong, and in this case, only the far right has done so.
Maybe East Germans didn’t realize how much they were behind?
Obviously the task was to pull East Germany up to western standards. And the investments to do so were very significant.
BUT the old East Germany was more equal, and I don’t think east Germans like the inequality of what they probably perceive as a capitalist problem.
Inequality is a problem throughout Europe, and those that are supposed to be good at it, like the Scandinavian countries, have been going the wrong way for decades now.
But of course AfD is destined to make the problem worse instead of better. Just like Trump obviously is in USA. And for the same reason, namely that they lack empathy.
I too hoped they would stop at 20% but it looks like they will overturn CDU in the next survey. Numbers are on the rise in west Germany too.
And regarding the “functioning democracy” I am not to optimistic either. 😔
Will that make AfD the biggest party?
Here it stopped at 2nd biggest.
Unfortunately yes. Currently it is:
CDU/CDU: 24 Prozent AfD: 24 Prozent SPD: 16 Prozent Grüne: 11 Prozent Linke: 11 Prozent …
They don’t favor russia. They favor racial purity. A large part of the east wants an ethnostate without any “filthy outsiders or queers”.